Fake?????

[Jean Paul D]

What do you think about this Caesar's Denarius? Fake?

Thanks
jp

[Joe Sermarini]

Fake

[Jean Paul D]

a fake, this is what i tought!
The elephant seems strange...

This coin is on ebay as genuine!!! what a joke!
and the coin come with an Authentication by the Renowned Expert David R. Sear ....

here's the link:
[link removed by Admin]

Can i report it to ebay?
JP

[Postumus14]

Let me start by saying that I am not qualified to comment on the authenticity (or lack thereof) for the noted coin.

I also have never dealt with the seller nor know anything about him/her beyond the information provided on the link.

However, it strikes me that perhaps we are jumping the gun by condemning the seller and the sale site.

Has anyone contacted him to offer a contrary opinion?

The seller does not state it comes with a David Sear Certificate of Authenticity but that the purchaser may have the coin sent for authentification and the seller will refund the cost of that service.

The seller states that if any coin is proven to be a modern fakes, the purchaser is entitled to 110% refund (perhaps making Mr. Sear's opinion valuable for more than one reason to the purchaser).

The seller has been operating on the sale site since 1998.  Not sure if that is a pro or con.

The seller's feedback is extensive and positive.  Again, not sure if that is much help but it is noted.

I have numerous coins in my black cabinet, including a few from more reliable dealers.

I agree that a dealer should be certain about the authenticity of the coin that is being sold, perhaps even more so with the price being requested but perhaps some further enquiries of the dealer are necessary.

[quisquam]

The elephant seems strange...

To me the style is perfectly ok. I have no opinion if authentic or not.

Stefan

[Lloyd Taylor]

What is the basis for determining the Caesar denarius is a fake? Although it is a commonly faked type, I cannot find a match to it in the Forum Fakes gallery.  I cannot see anything in the coin that is problematic, other than perhaps it looks to good, but then the mintage of this coin type was very extensive and more than a few specimens were hoarded in near EF condition.  There is nothing about the sellers site that suggests he's in the game of moving fakes in volume. The other ancients on offer look OK to me.

[Postumus]

It difficult to determining if it's a fake from a photo ... but in the case it would be agood fake ...

[Joe Sermarini]

These come with great variation in style but I don't recall an elephant quite like this one.  Perhaps it is just one I haven't noticed? 

[Lloyd Taylor]

The style is not uncommon, but it is far less frequent than the more pictorial image of the elephant.  Here's an example: http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=171823&AucID=215&Lot=202

A quick scan through a CoinArchives sample of 100 coins of the type shows it is not all that unusual a style, albeit in the minority of the depictions of the elephant: http://www.coinarchives.com/a/results.php?search=Julius+AND+caesar+AND+elephant&s=1&results=100   Just eyeballing this sample it is probably representative of around 10% of the type.

[areich]

Isn't that an obverse die match?

[Lloyd Taylor]

Its pretty close, if not a match.  I suspect it might be a die match, but I have not done a side by side comparison of the images.

[dougsmit]

I don't feel qualified to say from one photo whether this coin is real or fake but I sure do wish the experts out there would stop posting that a coin is fake without explaining what kind of fake that they are saying it is.  Posts here established that the elephant style is one of the correct options (I really, really prefer the other one to this cartoon but that was what one guy at the mint carved and we are stuck with it).  That means that this coin still could be a cast fake made from a perfectly good original.  The common way to 'out' this class of fake is to show a matching example cast from the same original or the original itself.  Sometimes we may condemn the original because it matches a pile of fakes but usually there is some other clue that helps. 

To my way of thinking, the greatest evidence that this coin is suspicious is the 'odd' way the name of David Sear is used in the posting.  This is not a dead giveaway like private auctions, claims that the seller knows nothing and a $1000 coin showing up in a sale from a seller with 50% low grade Constantinians and 50% high demand silvers (and nothing in between).  If someone can show a match off center the same way on both sides or even discuss signs (bubbles, detail loss) I'm missing that allow you to suspect the coin, please do post it but don't just yell 'fake' and run.  I don't know if this seller deserves to be on the faker list or not but if he does, lets at least have a fair trial and then string him up in the best tradition of the Old West vigilantes. 

I find it interesting that the obverse here does seem to be a die match with the CG coin but the reverse is not and the two have variations suggesting they were not both casts from the same parent coin.  This is not certain evidence that the coin is good but it does suggest that the two did not come from the same fake shop.  My hat is off to those of you who can be so certain that a coin is good or bad from a photo.  I've taken too many photos and handled too few elephants to be comfortable either way but lets not go stamping fake on the coin and having that post turn up ten years from now as evidence that we knew what we were doing. 

[Joe Sermarini]

I wouldn't normally say Fake so easily without explanation, except I thought that this was as really bad OBVIOUS modern die fake.  It seems there are some genuine coins that look like this one, so I am obviously wrong.  But that was a surprise to me.  I was way off.   

[Volodya]

As others have pointed out, genuine denarii with this crude style do exist. In my experience, although most, maybe all, of the antiquities offered by this seller are indeed modern, their ancient coins are mostly authentic. However, their images are so thoroughly Photoshopped that it's pretty much impossible to know what their coins actually look like. They also used to routinely employ shill bidders to drive up prices in their Ebay coin auctions. (Probably, they still do, but the changes in Ebay make it difficult to determine that.) For these reasons, I urge prospective buyers to stay far away; most likely, you'll receive a genuine coin, but one that is overpriced and inferior to what you thought you were bidding on.

Phil Davis